Fighting for fun

Where only first names appear, names have been changed to protect the identities of the sources.

Fists raised, the two fighters circle each other. A lightning-fast right hook to the nose sends one careening back to his corner, blood dripping down his face. It's a win for Eric, a junior.

This isn't a boxing match. They don't even consider it a real fight, just a "get-together" between friends, bound by blood. An hour later, Eric and his opponent Greg, also a junior, are still laughing about it. That's the benefit of fighting as friends, they say.

Eric, Greg and their friends are a group similar only in name to the ultra-masculine, ultra-secretive fight clubs made famous by the eponymous cult novel by Chuck Palahniuk, which was made into a 1999 movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The original fight clubs were dark and bloody - fighters duked it out bare-knuckled, and the violent brawls usually ended in a K.O.

Other teen fight clubs around the country take the rules more seriously than those at Blair. Within the last year, authorities discovered more than six fight clubs in Alaska, New Jersey, Texas and Washington state, according to USA Today. Children as young as 12 are fighting, sometimes for a camera or video cell phone. Fight clubs vary in brutality; the most violent scenes from some clubs' homemade videos contain footage of group assaults on unsuspecting bystanders.

Last February, police investigated a fight club in New Jersey after parents found a video of middle-school boys hitting each other, seemingly for fun, posted on a web site. Four boys were ultimately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, according to ABC News. Though Blair's fight clubs don't involve much actual injury, members could face similar consequences - even by mutual consent, fighting is still illegal and, as these Blazers have learned, dangerous.

"I am Jack's smirking revenge"

Eric and Greg sit next to each other at lunch, reminiscing about their fight last winter. The two had traded increasingly heated insults in the weeks beforehand, and their friends decided a fight would be the best way to resolve the mounting tension between them.

After 30 minutes of combat, they were fast friends again - and the idea of pitting friends against one another caught on. Soon, it became a Friday night staple. They had once spent their evenings playing tackle football, but now the friends were pairing up, strapping on boxing gloves and preparing to slug it out. They call it the Takoma Park Fight Club.

Greg describes his fight with Eric animatedly, insisting that he was the victor. He grins as he remembers the punch that gave Eric his nosebleed. "It was like one of those slow-motion fights in the movies," he says, swinging his fist slowly at Eric to demonstrate.

Lucy, a senior, and her friends also organized a series of fights last summer. According to Lucy, one day last June they began idly discussing who would win in different fight scenarios within their group of friends and between their group and another. Soon, they were planning to test their predictions. Although Lucy says the fights began as "just a joke," she adds that she and her friends wanted to go all-out. "We were serious about it," she says.

After finishing their final exams, they regrouped at a friend's house. Alcohol was passed around, and the group, buzzing with anticipation, made their way out into the backyard and formed a circle. "It was intense," Lucy remembers. Lucy fought several of her friends, including Alison, a senior, who hosted the event.

The fight was serious, although they, like the Takoma Park Fight Club, wore boxing gloves. "Apparently I gave [Alison] a black eye," Lucy says, although some of the fight's details are still fuzzy in her memory, she says. "People say she knocked me out," she adds, but she insists that she stumbled on a pile of rocks and fell into the bushes.

There were no hard feelings after the fight - but unlike the boys, Lucy and Alison say they had no feelings of animosity to begin with. "We came into the fight friends, and we ended the fight friends," Lucy says.

Alison took part in three fights over the course of the evening. She won each time, but she insists that the aggression stayed strictly in the ring. "We would hug and laugh about it afterwards," she says.

"I wanted to destroy something beautiful"

The friendly atmosphere of organized fighting doesn't lessen the consequences, according to Silver Spring police. Anyone caught fighting could face charges of assault and battery. At Blair, the minimum consequence for fighting is three to 10 days of out-of-school suspension.

According to psychiatrist Ellen Minerva, fight clubs may appeal to teens because they create a way for them to release anger. "I think that historically and cross-culturally, there is some sort of adolescent pecking order going on - and not much of a physical outlet outside of sports," she says. "Adolescents have a lot of energy and nowhere to put it."

Security team leader Ed Reddick says that organized fighting is unheard of at Blair. "Most situations involve just personal interactions," he says. "One fight and then it's over - not likely to continue."

Despite the possible consequences, something motivates members of Blair's fight clubs to strap on their boxing gloves and duke it out. Alison describes the sense of power involved in exerting your strength over a friend. "We have a lot of pride," she says. "Being able to punish [a friend] sort of gives you something over them."

In contrast, Greg thinks fighting is a way to settle problems quickly and decisively, as in his fight with Eric. "It's a good way to work out conflicts within the group," he says.

However, Minerva warns that violence is a poor substitute for real conflict resolution. "You're not identifying what the conflicts are or resolving them," she says. "You're just pounding each other in the face."

"I want you to hit me as hard as you can"

Lucy says the party at Alison's house was the first of several organized fights that took place last summer. However, the number of spectators and participants began to dwindle as the summer wore on, and interest died out when school restarted. For the girls, the impromptu fight club is now just a fond memory. "It was definitely a phase," Lucy says. "I don't think we'd do it again."

The Takoma Park Fight Club, however, is still organizing fights. One lunch period, the members huddle over a notepad in the SAC, matching up potential fighters and giving them amusing nicknames. They spend lunch reliving past fights and planning the location of the next meeting.

There is no air of secrecy in their proceedings. They openly debate whether they should sell tickets at the door or let friends watch the fights for free.

Despite the safety hazards and legal repercussions of recreational fighting, the group continues to seek new blood. As a friend passes by the group's table in the SAC, one member looks up from his notepad. "Hey," he says, "wanna fight?"